Jeremy Bowen Interviewed by Mary Hockaday

BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen talks about his new book on the Middle East and about his life as a foreign correspondent including his most recent travels to the frontline in Ukraine.

Bowen’s The Making of the Modern Middle East is based on his own 30 years’ reporting of the Middle East. He looks at the region’s history, meets ordinary men and women on the front line and their leaders, and explores the power games that have wreaked devastation on civilian populations. And he assesses what the future might hold for the region.

‘An illuminating and riveting read’ Jonathan Dimbleby

Bowen is one of the most recognisable journalists of the past few decades. He is a former Middle East correspondent and Middle East editor. He left frontline work for a period after his car came under fire from Israel Defence Forces in Lebanon in 2000 resulting in the death of two colleagues. He was one of few journalists reporting from Syria on the civil war and has most recently been reporting from Ukraine. He is author of Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East and The Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime. Here he talks to Mary Hockaday, master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, a former controller of BBC World Service, a former head of the BBC newsroom, and a one-time foreign correspondent for the BBC and The Independent.